Such a drive for a gripper mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,612. There the gripper elements are attached to one end of a two-armed lever. The other end of the lever is provided with a toothing cooperating with a gear segment of a second lever. This second lever is actuated by a cam mechanism, so that the gripper element is pivotally reciprocated through a certain angle.
A disadvantage of this drive of the gripper mechanism is that the toothing requires lubrication. In addition, the toothing is subject to wear, which causes play in the drive. Moreover, replacing such levers having a gear segment is rather costly.
The object of the invention is to provided a drive that does not have the above-mentioned disadvantages.